To fight Islamist radicals, Tajikistan shaves off beards of 13,000 men

Ishaan Tharoor

In a bid to curb Islamist radicalisation, authorities in the Central Asian republic of Tajikistan shaved the beards off nearly 13,000 men. They also shut down about 160 shops selling traditional Islamic garb and supposedly "convinced" more than 1700 women to stop wearing headscarves.

According to Radio Free Europe's Tajik service, the measures were taken in the south-west Khatlon region, which borders Afghanistan. The region's head of police said that 12,818 men with "overly long and unkempt beards" were "brought to order" in 2015.

Lutfullo Bobobekov was ordered to shave off his beard by police. Photo: RFERL

The secular regime of President Emomali Rakhmon is known for its hardline opposition to political Islam. From 1992 to 1997, Tajikistan endured a bitter civil war between government forces loyal to Mr Rakhmon and an Islamist opposition. Estimates suggest that 50,000 to 100,000 people were killed.

The government has taken steps to push back against Islamic traditions it claims are being imported from Afghanistan. The US State Department has estimated that more than 90 per cent of its population is Muslim, and that religious adherence appears to be growing in the country. Mr Rakhmon, a secular leader though a Sunni himself, has been in power since 1992. His authoritarian government has repeatedly expressed concern over the rise of Islam, linking it to extremism.

Mr Rakhmon had even linked the wearing of headscarves to prostitution in a televised address. In September, the country's Supreme Court banned the only registered Islamist political party that was officially recognised. And in December, Mr Rakhmon assumed further powers after parliament granted his family life-long immunity from prosecution and designated him "the founder of peace and national unity of Tajikistan".

Perhaps unsurprisingly, troubles remain in this deeply impoverished nation of about 7 million people. Hundreds of Tajik nationals are thought to be in Iraq and Syria among the ranks of Islamic State. Last year, the chief of an elite police unit assigned to combating Islamist extremists disappeared and is now thought to have joined IS.

Advertisement

The crackdowns in Tajikistan mirror measures carried out across the border in China's far-western region of Xinjiang, where Beijing has sought to curb the Muslim traditions of the local Uighurs, a Turkic Muslim minority.